Finnish studio Fingersoft is letting staff work shorter six-hour days

Finnish mobile studio Fingersoft is offering staff the chance to work a shorter six-hour day, and claims the option is a "better alternative" to the four-day work week.

Anybody who chooses to work a six-hour day at Fingersoft will have to take a small pay cut, and will earn 90 percent of their full salary.

A number of studios have been experimenting with new work models lately in a bid to offer employees a better work-life balance, and many have backed the four-day work week.

Indeed, many studios we spoke with in 2021 found that implementing a shorter working week didn't have a notable impact on productivity, but it Fingersoft is throwing its weight behind shorter working days.

The studio, which employs 110 people in Oulu and Helsinki, ran an experiment during 2021 and 2022 that saw roughly 50 percent of its workforce choose between working four eight-hour days a week or shorter six-hour days for five days a week.

The company then measured the experiences of its staff by conducting surveys through a third party, and found shorter working days were considered more effective than a four-day week by many.

"With the shorter six-hour working day, productivity remained almost the same, while with the four-day week it decreased in the same proportion as the working time. The advantage of the shorter working days was also that the interaction was maintained in the work community every day," explained the company.

Fingersoft CEO Jaakko Kylmäoja noted that many employees didn't want to commit to reducing their work hours because of a significant decrease in salary, describing a like-for-like pay cut as "too big of a deal breaker for many."

As a result, the studio decided to experiment with a working time model that allowed its staff to work 80 percent of the time with 90 percent of the full salary.

"The results showed that well-being and work-life balance in particular improved significantly for those who participated in the experiment. Our employees used the increased free time to, among other things, take up new hobbies and prepare healthier meals at home,” added Kylmäoja, weighing in on the results.

With the experiment ending in the fall of 2022, Fingersoft looked at the feedback it received and chose to implement a new permanent work model that will now allow employees to work shorter days.

"Based on all the results, a permanent new model of 80 percent working time was created, which became available at the beginning of this year. Now those who want to can work six hours a day, five days a week, and the salary is paid at 90% of the full salary," said the company.